I went to work chopping down all the wood I could. It was odd, chopping down a tree from the top of its roots. Theo explored a little, but this cave seemed to be a smaller one. There weren’t any other chambers. I didn’t mind. I had a feeling that since this was on my side of the river, the only monster we needed to fear was the wolf.
Instead of dropping seven logs, this wood only dropped three. It was of a darker type to differentiate itself from the other trees. I was excited. Would I be able to make cushions, too? Probably not until I had a sheep, but that was for wool inside the house. Could I still make a cushion the wolf wouldn’t tear to shreds?
I could only carry ten logs per inventory slot, which was pretty nice, considering how valuable this wood was to me. My mind was already whirling with ideas of what to do with it. I’d have to see what was unlocked on the clipboard. But there was definitely going to be a bench nestled among those lilacs.
I made a pile as Theo started placing wood in his inventory. He glanced around as though still expecting a monster to pop up, but dutifully filled his inventory slots.
“Disappointed there’s no monsters to fight?” I asked.
“A little.”
I chuckled, waiting to see how much more space he had before chopping more wood. “I suppose I only deal with two monsters. The wolf and them.”
“And a creep that I’m ninety percent sure is my father,” Theo said as he continued to stuff logs in his back.
I nodded. “Yeah, okay. That too.”
He smiled shaking his head. “Well, according to the map here, we’ve explored everything in the wolf’s territory.”
“Wait, what map?” I asked.
Theo tapped the side of his head. “This map. Every time I explore more, bits of the map are unlocked.” He glanced at me. “Do you not have a map?”
“No. Just an eerily good sense of where things are.”
Theo raised an eyebrow. “Oh. That’s pretty cool, too.”
“Thanks,” I said as he placed the last of the logs in his inventory. “Do you have room for anymore?”
“About four more,” he said.
I already moved toward the roots. “I will take it.”
Once our inventories were full, we walked toward the entrance. Theo hadn’t found an exit, so we had to leave the same way we came.
Theo did a bit of scouting before ushering me out. We both headed back to the house. My heart started pounding as I glanced up at the foliage. “What time is it?”
Theo shrugged. “I don’t know. I don’t have a watch.”
“It’s just… if it’s dark enough… the wolf might be around the house now. I can never tell what time it is here,” I said, glancing around.
“Mmm,” Theo said, concerned. “We’ll make something work.”
“Not dying,” I said.
Theo shrugged. “I mean… at least we know dying is not as bad as in real life.”
“We need to avoid it as much as possible, because I honestly think part of defeating them is also figuring out how to get them out of your system. Without dying.”
Theo let out a quiet sigh. “Yeah, alright.”
“Do you still want to see your grandmother’s bedroom?” I asked.
“Yeah. We can try that. And if it’s too late when we’re done and the wolf is out, I’ll-” I shot him a sharp look, and Theo pursed his lips, thinking. “Maybe we can try what it’s like if I fall asleep in the back porch. See if I wake up at basecamp or something.”
I nodded as we kept walking. The trees seemed to swallow the light, and there wasn’t much to see. The only indication that we were getting any closer was when we both stopped and were asked about whether we wanted to leave the wolf territory.
I mentally chose yes, and I assume Theo did too, since we both moved forward again. It was a good thing I had my tracker ability, because the trees were so thick they blocked out the sun. The only thing I knew was we had a mere twenty minutes until the wolf appeared in the clearing. We really cut that close.
I almost ran into the lamp post before realizing we’d made it through the trees. It was dark, and it was hard to tell when the house didn’t have any lights on.
“We’re here,” I said, the beam of light landing on the chipped white brick of the house. I moved over so I was at the pavement leading up to the house. I had a slight smile as I held out a hand. “Can you imagine it, Theo? Tulips leading up to the front door?”
“Tulips don’t last long,” Theo said.
“Maybe not on earth, but just sprinkle a little game logic and you have eternal tulips.” I frowned. “Until winter. And then… until the end of spring.”
Theo shook his head. “How? How are you so happy all the time?”
I was surprised by this question, but something told me we’d had this conversation before. “I don’t know.”
“You had a rough childhood, too. Your mom was some sort of drug addict, and you never knew if you’d get a meal that day. You were starving when you came to Brenda and Doug’s. Twice. Your mom overdosed. I just… don’t get it.”
There was no point trying to remember what I said before. I shrugged. “I don’t know. I guess the little things just get me excited.” I shone my flashlight at the front porch, imagining all the things I could do with it, but I paused again, giving another thought to Theo’s question. I slowed to a stop and let out a breath. “I’m not happy all the time. I still have my moments of sadness. Of regret. Of pain. But…” I glanced at Theo again. “But I’m also not using up a lot of energy fighting a sludge monster. So maybe to you it does seem like I’m happy most of the time.”
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Theo nodded, glancing at the front door. “I suppose you’re right. It’s harder, splitting my energy this way.”
“Yeah,” I said, patting him on the shoulder. “Especially when you have to for your own survival.”
We were quiet as we came to the front door. Theo stared at it long and hard before he closed his eyes. “Can you just lead me there?”
“Yeah.”
I took his hand, then opened the door. Theo kept his eyes shut as we passed through the doorway. There were so many emotions on Theo’s face, even with his eyes closed. Despite how much I had cleaned, I knew the smells and the memories hit him.
The fact that the mildew smell would not hit him gave me a strange amount of pride.
I opened the door to his grandmother’s bedroom and stepped inside, making sure the door was closed again so he couldn’t see into the entertainment room. I placed him near the center of the room, then backed away. “Alright. We’re in here, and both doors are closed.”
“Both doors?”
“The one leading to the entertainment room, and the one leading to the hall.”
“I… didn’t know there was another door leading to the hall.” Theo cracked an eye open, glancing around. His face relaxed the more he looked around. “Yep. My grandma’s bedroom was the best first choice.” He moved around, smiling. “This looks fantastic.”
I couldn’t help it. My chest swirled with pride. “Isn’t lilac the best color for a bedroom?”
He chuckled, his fingers moving over the covers before he felt the dirt on his fingertips.
“I still need to get a sheep to get wool to replace the blankets, but that’ll come soon,” I said.
“Oh, don’t worry about it,” he said, glancing around again. “It’s a lovely room.”
I smiled at his compliment before my mind got distracted. I needed to check the clipboard. For whatever reason, I was alerted by everything else unlocking on the clipboard, yet not when I reached certain levels. I could already be at level twenty-five for animal care and not even know it.
A shriek reverberated across the room and my mind shut down. I stumbled back, gasping. Theo whirled around, pulling out a sword. The grandma ghost appeared, shrieking again. I never got a good look at her before. I was always out of the room well before I did. The only reason why I did not open the door and bolt out of the room now was because Theo was here. He wouldn’t want to move into other rooms, and I didn’t want to leave him here with his grandmother’s ghost.
“Nana?” Theo whispered.
The ghost seemed to solidify, her chest heaving with anger as she glowered at me. I was against the door, fighting every urge to twist the knob and run.
“Nana, can you hear me?”
She was in her house coat with a thin material wrapped around her curlers. There was dried blood on her face, coming from a red line around her throat. Theo was frozen in place, and his eyes were locked on that wound on her neck. The grandma, or Nana, as Theo called her, still had a burning fury in her eyes that she pointed toward me.
“She’s the one who brought the cat!” Her voice had an otherworldly, echoing aspect to it. “She’s been throwing away all my things! How DARE she!”
Nana shrieked again, and I covered my ears, relieved Killie wasn’t in this room.
“Nana! Stop!” Theo placed his sword back in his inventory and holding out two hands. “Stop. Please.”
Nana was glaring right at me, and I was too terrified to speak.
“She’s doing a good thing,” Theo said.
“Everything she’s thrown out! The audacity of it all! And to bring in a cat. A cat, Theo! It’s disrespectful!”
The woman was talking to Theo. I was sitting on the ground, terrified. The ghosts had never talked to me. Granted, I never tried, but this was a whole new revelation. I had never heard her speak, and a large part of me was glad Theo had taken over this part of the conversation.
“It’s alright, Nana.” There were tears in Theo’s eyes. Black, sludgy tears, threatening to fall. “It’s alright. She’s doing a good thing.”
“By getting rid of me! By throwing away everything that’s mine! You cannot let this happen, Theo! You cannot let her get away with this!”
Theo moved forward, the ghost solidifying more the longer she was here, speaking. Nana finally tore her gaze from me to look right at Theo.
“Let these things go, Nana,” Theo said. “Please. Quinn is doing an amazing job cleaning the house.”
“What are you trying to say, boy?” Nana asked. “That you’ve always wanted me gone? Was my lifestyle too much for you? Do you dare disrespect me when I opened my doors to you and your mother?”
Theo let out a tiny sigh, then dropped his hands. I remained frozen in place in the corner. This didn’t seem like a conversation for me anyway, and I was fine with that. Theo himself looked as though he wasn’t sure what to say. I got the impression that Nana was far more feisty and got angrier a lot more than Theo cared to admit.
“Everything she does, I feel myself getting lost a little more each day. How can we remain if she keeps throwing our memories out?”
“Do you think that’s what she’s doing? Throwing you out?” Theo asked.
“She’s thrown out everything!” Nana’s voice shook the walls of the room and I covered my ears. “Everything, Theo! She is scrubbing me from this house. Me, who inherited this house from my own grandmother! The blatant disrespect!” Her eyes focused on me, and I found myself cowering again. “I will not allow it!”
The walls shook, and I tried to make myself as small as possible. Nana sneered at me. “‘This house would be so much better if it were cleaner,’ you says. ‘Make the walls lilac,’ you says. ‘Everything would be so much better if everything that was mine, my mothers, and my grandmothers was taken out and thrown away in the dumpster!’ you say!”
Nana strode forward, and I wished for her ability to move through walls so I could run. Run as fast as possible from the rage I saw in this ghostly woman’s eyes. That otherworldly echo in her voice did not help in the slightest.
Instinctively, Theo threw out a hand and caught Nana around the waist to keep her in one place. The shock of it made me gasp. I didn’t think you could touch ghosts. “Nana…” Theo started to say.
“You believe her mission? You believe she’s doing a good thing?!” Nana stared at Theo, daring him to answer.
Theo dropped his hands, staring at his grandmother’s face. “I believe… we shouldn’t tie so much of our memories in things,” Theo whispered. “I believe that… sometimes tragedies happen. Where we might be whisked away from the house with nothing but the clothes on our backs. Away from all the stuff, from all the things, from the four walls that make up a home. And you realize three weeks into your new home that you never needed things to remember a person by.”
Nana stared long and hard at Theo. The rage was still there, but it had softened considerably. “Something happened to me, didn’t it?” Theo paused, then nodded. “What will happen to the house?”
Theo hesitated again, then gave a slow rise of his shoulders. “I don’t know. Because I was taken away. Left with memories.”
Nana watched, him, the rage seeping out of her like the black tears now staining Theo’s cheeks. “Bad memories?”
Theo’s gaze dropped to the floor as more tears fell. “The bad memories are often fighting for prominence in my mind. But I try to remember the good.”
Nana nodded, the rage now gone. “Remember the good, Theo. There is always good. The bad wants us to think there’s no good, but the bad is wrong.” Her voice lost that other worldly echo. She was here, solidly.
“I’m trying,” Theo said.
“I know you are. You’re such a good boy.” A sob broke through Theo as he tried to cover his face. Nana wrapped her arms around him, rubbing his back. “You’ve gotten so tall.”
The sobs were slowing, but Theo still clung to his grandmother. “I’m… older.”
“Take good care of yourself, Theo. Make sure you wash around your ears, and don’t forget to eat your veggies,” Nana said.
Theo chuckled. “Okay, Nana.”
He still clung to her, even as she reverted back to a ghostly figure, then disappeared for good. Theo remained standing, his arms curling into himself as his grandmother disappeared. I remained on the floor, staring at Theo.
Words appeared in my vision, making my eyes grow wide.
1/4 ghosts defeated
Power of them reduced by 10%